New Tomb

Joseph places Jesus’ body in a “new tomb.”

New wine cannot be contained in old wineskins.  The new wine of the new covenant, the wine that Jesus will drink new in the Father’s kingdom, cannot be contained in old wineskins.  So too, a new kind of body requires a new kind of tomb, and Jesus’ body is definitely a new sort of body.  It’s not surprising that Matthew uses the word “tomb” ( mnemeion ) seven times, and the seventh instance of the word refers to an inverted tomb, a tomb opened from the inside.

And what does this do to memory?  Tombs are “memorials,” mnemonic devices for the dead.  But what of an empty tomb? How can you memorialize a tomb that’s been cleared out?  We memorialize the resurrection, but that’s only to say we memorialize what has begun to happen but hasn’t been completed.  We memorialize the future.